Manuela Macedonia & Katharina von Kriegstein
11. Implications for Second Language Instruction
When learning a foreign language, students usually read or listen to the verbal information they want to acquire. Traditional instruction makes wide use of listening and comprehension activities (Winitz 1981; Swain & Lapkin 1995). As homework, learners go through bilingual vocabulary lists and learn the words by reading them. Foreign language instruction is far from reconstructing the experiences we have when acquiring our native language. In fact, children make sensorimotor experiences by interacting intensively with their caregivers and their environment (Tomasello 2005; Kuhl 2010). Thus, it is no surprise that the outcome of the two learning processes is different with respect to memory. While under normal conditions it is unlikely that people forget words of their native language, adults learning a foreign idiom are plagued by forgetting what they have previously learned.
It has been demonstrated that multimodal learning helps to better memor- ize information (Shimojo & Shams 2001; von Kriegstein & Giraud 2006; Shams & Seitz 2008; von Kriegstein et al. 2008; Shams et al. 2011) and efforts have been made in foreign language teaching practice to enrich vocabulary with multi- sensory input by using flash cards (Barcroft 2009; Boers et al. 2009; Tonzar et al. 2009), videos (Sydorenko 2010), songs (Keskin 2011), and implementing them on novel technical devices such as mobile phones (Başoǧlu & Akdemir 2010). However, a view linking the body and mind, considering the body in action as a learning tool, is still missing in foreign language instruction. Hence, we propose the use of gestures as a learning device that grounds foreign language in the
body and thereby enhances memory.
This paper focuses on the impact of gestures memory for lexical items. In fact, the acquisition of lexical items is basic to language learning at any level. However, it is conceivable that gestures can also help to acquire morphological (Goldin-Meadow et al. 1995) and syntactic structures. In a German publication, Macedonia (1999) addressed both aspects when describing teaching practice in foreign language with gestures. Observations from classroom activities encourage the use of gestures for complex verbal morphology in Romance languages and for different kinds of combined clauses in syntactic contexts in Italian. Nevertheless, controlled laboratory research is lacking and is needed in order to collect empirical evidence for the use of gestures in these language domains.
References
Adorni, Roberta & Alice Mado Proverbio. 2012. The neural manifestation of the word concreteness effect: An electrical neuroimaging study. Neuropsychologia 50, 880–891.
Allen, R. & C. Hulme. 2006. Speech and language processing mechanisms in verbal serial recall. Journal of Memory and Language 55, 64–88.
Arbib, Michael A. 2009. Evolving the language-ready brain and the social mechanisms that support language. Journal of Communication Disorders 42, 263–271.
Asher, J. J. & B. S. Price. 1967. The learning strategy of the total physical response: Some age differences. Child Development 38, 1219–1227.
Asher, James J. 1977. Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher!s Guidebook. San Jose, CA: Pajaro Press.
Aziz-Zadeh, L., S. M. Wilson, G. Rizzolatti & M. Iacoboni. 2006. Congruent embodied representations for visually presented actions and linguistic phrases describing actions. Current Biology 16, 1818–1823.
Bäckman, L., L. G. Nilsson & D. Chalom. 1986. New evidence on the nature of the encoding of action events. Memory and Cognition 14, 339–346.
Barcroft, J. 2009. Strategies and performance in intentional L2 vocabulary learning. Language Awareness 18, 74–89.
Barsalou, L. W. 2008. Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology 59, 617– 645.
Başoǧlu, E. B. & O. Akdemir. 2010. A comparison of undergraduate students' English vocabulary learning: Using mobile phones and flash cards. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 9, 1–7.
Beauchamp, M. S. 2005. See me, hear me, touch me: "ultisensory integration in lateral occipital-temporal cortex. Current Opinion in Neurobioly 15, 145–153. Bernardis, Paolo, Elena Salillas & Nicoletta Caramelli. 2008. Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence of semantic interaction between iconic gestures and words. Cognitive Neuropsychology 25, 1114–1128.
Binder, J. R., C. F. Westbury, K. A. McKiernan, E. T. Possing, & D. A Medler. 2005. Distinct brain systems for processing concrete and abstract concepts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 17, 905–917.
Bley-Vroman, R. 1990. The logical problem of foreign language learning. Linguistic Analysis 20, 3–47.
Boers, F., A. M. P. Píriz, H. Stengers & J. Eyckmans. 2009. Does pictorial elucidation foster recollection of idioms? Language Teaching Research 13, 367–382.
Carels, P. E. 1981. Pantomime in the foreign-language classroom. Foreign Language Annals 14, 407–411.
Chomsky, Noam. 1959. A review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language 35, 26–58.
Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books. Cohen, R. L. 1981. On the generality of some memory laws. Scandinavian Journal
of Psychology 22, 267–281.
Cohen, R. L. & G. Bean. 1983. Memory in educable mentally retarded adults: Deficit in subject or experimenter? Intelligence 7, 287–298.
Cohen, R. L. 1985. On the generality of the laws of memory. In L. G. Archer & T. Nilsson (eds.), Animal Learning and Human Memory, 247–277. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cole, Michael W. & Walter Schneider. 2007. The cognitive control network: Integrated cortical regions with dissociable functions. NeuroImage 37, 343– 360.
Corballis, Michael C. 2009. The Evolution of Language. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1156, 19–43.
Craik, F. I. & E. Tulving. 1975. Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104, 268– 294.
Engelkamp, J. & H. Krumnacker. 1980. Imaginale und motorische Prozesse beim Behalten verbalen Materials. Zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte Psychologie, 511–533.
Engelkamp, J. & H. D. Zimmer. 1985. Motor programs and their relation to semantic memory. German Journal of Psychology, 239–254.
Engelkamp, Johannes. 1998. Memory for Actions. Hove: Psychology Press.
Feyten, C. 1991. The power of listening ability: An overlooked dimension in language acquisition. Modern Language Journal 75, 173–180.
Fliessbach, K., S. Weis, P. Klaver, C. E. Elger & B. Weber. 2006. The effect of word concreteness on recognition memory. NeuroImage 32, 1413–1421. Fodor, Janet Dean. 1977. Semantics: Theories of Meaning in Generative Grammar.
Brighton: Harvester.
Fodor, Jerry A. 1976. The Language of Thought. Hassocks: Harvester Press.
Fodor, Jerry A. 1983. The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fodor, Jerry A. 1987. Psychosemantics: The problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fodor, Jerry Alan, Thomas G. Bever & Merrill F. Garrett. 1974. The Psychology of Language. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics and Generative Grammar. New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Freeman, J. E. & J. A. Ellis. 2003. Aging and the accessibility of performed and to-be-performed actions. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 10, 298– 309.
Gallese, V. & G. Lakoff. 2005. The Brain´s concepts: The role of the sensory- motor system in conceptual knowledge. Cognitive Neuropsychology 22, 455–479.
Garagnani, M., T. Wennekers & F. Pulvermüller. 2007. A neuronal model of the language cortex. Neurocomputing 70, 1914–1919.
Gentilucci, M. & M. C. Corballis. 2006. From manual gesture to speech: A gradual transition. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 30, 949–960. Goldin-Meadow, S. 2007. Pointing sets the stage for learning language — And
creating language. Child Development 78, 741–745.
Goldin-Meadow, Susan, Carolyn Mylander & Cynthia Butcher. 1995. The resilience of combinatorial structure at the word level: morphology in self-styled gesture systems. Cognition 56, 195–262.
Goldin-Meadow, Susan. 2003. Hearing Gesture: How our Hands Help us Think: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
González, Julio, Alfonso Barros-Loscertales, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Vanessa Meseguer, Ana Sanjuán, Vicente Belloch & César Ávila. 2006. Reading cinnamon activates olfactory brain regions. NeuroImage 32, 906–912.
Green, Antonia, Benjamin Straube, Susanne Weis, Andreas Jansen, Klaus Willmes, Kerstin Konrad & Tilo Kircher. 2009. Neural integration of iconic and unrelated coverbal gestures: A functional MRI study. Human Brain Mapping 30, 3309–3324.
Gullberg, M. 2008. Gestures and second language acquisition. In Peter Robinson (ed.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, 276–305. London: Routledge.
Gullberg, M. & S. G. McCafferty. 2008. Introduction to gesture and SLA: Toward an integrated approach. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30, 133–146.
Hauk, O., Y. Shtyrov & F. Pulvermüller. 2006. The sound of actions as reflected by mismatch negativity: Rapid activation of cortical sensory-motor networks by sounds associated with finger and tongue movements. European Journal of Neuroscience 23, 811–821.
Hebb, Donald Olding. 1949. The Organization of Behavior. A Neuropsychological Theory. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Heil, M., B. Rolke, J. Engelkamp, F. Rosler, M. Ozcan & E. Enninghausen. 1999. Event-related brain potentials during recognition of ordinary and bizarre action phrases following verbal and subject-performed encoding conditions. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 11, 261–280.
Holle, H. & T. C. Gunter. 2007. The role of iconic gestures in speech disambiguation: ERP evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19, 1175– 1192.
Holle, Henning, Thomas C. Gunter, Shirley-Ann Rüschemeyer, Andreas Hennenlotter & Marco Iacoboni. 2008. Neural correlates of the processing of co-speech gestures. NeuroImage 39, 2010–2024.
Hostetter, Autumn B. 2011. When do gestures communicate? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 137, 297–315.
Hutton, S., L. Sheppard, J. M. Rusted & H. H. Ratner. 1996. Structuring the acquisition and retrieval environment to facilitate learning in individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type. Memory 4, 113–130.
Kelly, S. D., C. Kravitz & M. Hopkins. 2004. Neural correlates of bimodal speech and gesture comprehension. Brain and Language 89, 253–260.
Kelly, Spencer D., Tara McDevitt & Megan Esch. 2009. Brief training with co- speech gesture lends a hand to word learning in a foreign language. Language and Cognitive Processes 24, 313–334.
Kelly, Spencer D., Peter Creigh & James Bartolotti. 2010. Integrating speech and iconic gestures in a stroop-like task: Evidence for automatic processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22, 683–694.
Kendon, A. 1981. Gestures, their origins and distribution. Semiotica 37, 129–163. Keskin, F. 2011. Using songs as audio materials in teaching Turkish as a foreign
language. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 10, 378–383. Kiefer, M. & M. Spitzer. 2001. The limits of a distributed account of conceptual
knowledge. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, 469–471.
Klaver, Peter, Jürgen Fell, Thomas Dietl, Simone Schür, Carlo Schaller, Christian E. Elger & Guillén Fernández. 2005. Word imageability affects the hippocampus in recognition memory. Hippocampus 15, 704–712.
Klimesch, Wolfgang. 1994. The Dtructure of Long-Term Memory: A Connectivity Model of Semantic Processing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Knopf, M. 1992. Gedächtnis für Handlungen. Funktionsweise und Entwicklung. Dissertation, University of Heidelberg.
Knopf, M., Mack, W., Lenel, A., and Ferrante, S. 2005. Memory for action events: findings in neurological patients. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 46, 11– 19.
Knudsen, E. I. 2007. Fundamental components of attention. Annual Review of Neuroscience 30, 57–78.
Kormi-Nouri, R. 1995. The nature of memory for action events: An episodic integration view. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 337–363.
Kormi-Nouri, R. 2001. The motor component is not crucial! In H. Zimmer et al. (eds.), Memory for Action: A distinct Form of Episodic Memory?, 97–111. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kousta, S. T., G.Vigliocco, D. P. Vinson, M. Andrews & E. Del Campo. 2011. The representation of abstract words: Why emotion matters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 140, 14–34.
Krashen, Stephen & Tracy D. Terrell. 1983. The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom. Oxford: Pergamon.
Krashen, Stephen. 2000. What does it take to acquire language? ESL Magazine 3, 22–23.
Von Kriegstein, K. & A. L. Giraud. 2006. Implicit multisensory associations influence voice recognition. PLoS Biology 4, 1809–1820.
Von Kriegstein, K., Ö. Dogan, M. Grüter, A. L. Giraud, C. A. Kell, T. Grüter, A. Kleinschmidt & S. J. Kiebel. 2008. Simulation of talking faces in the human brain improves auditory speech recognition. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105, 6747–6752.
Kuhl, P. K. 2010. Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition. Neuron 67, 713–727.
Kusanagi, Y. 2005. Analysis of research on nonverbal communication in language education. Paper presented at JALT2004 Conference Proceedings, Tokyo.
Kutas, M. & S. A. Hillyard. 1980. Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science 207, 203–205.
Levy-Drori, S. & A. Henik. 2006. Concreteness and context availability in lexical decision tasks. American Journal of Psychology 119, 45–65.
Macedonia, M. 1996. Lautliche Bewegungsbilder. Festschrift Universität Linz 1. Macedonia, M. 1999. Sinn-voll Fremdsprachen unterrichten. Linz: Veritas-
Cornelsen.
Macedonia, Manuela. 2003. Sensorimotor enhancing of verbal memory through ‘Voice Movement Icons’ during encoding of foreign language (German: Voice Movement Icons. Sensomotorische Encodierungsstrategie zur Steigerung der quantitativen und qualitativen Lerneffizienz bei Fremdsprachen) University of Salzburg: PhD Thesis.
Macedonia, Manuela & Thomas R. Knösche. 2011. Body in mind: How gestures empower foreign language learning. Mind, Brain, and Education 5, 196–211. Macedonia, Manuela, Karsten Müller & Angela D. Friederici. 2011. The impact of iconic gestures on foreign language word learning and its neural substrate. Human Brain Mapping 32, 982–998.
Mariani, L. 1981. English through mime. English Teaching Forum 19, 36–37. Masumoto, K., M. Yamaguchi, K. Sutani, S. Tsuneto, A. Fujita & M. Tonoike.
2006. Reactivation of physical motor information in the memory of action events. Brain Research 1101, 102–109.
McCafferty, Steven G. 2008. Mimesis and second language acquisition: A sociocultural perspective. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30, 147– 167.
McCafferty, Steven G. & Gale Stam. 2008. Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research. London: Routledge.
McClelland, J. L. & T. T. Rogers. 2003. The parallel distributed processing approach to semantic cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4, 310–322. McNeill, David. 1992. Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought.
Chicago, IL & London: University of Chicago Press.
Mecklenbräuker, S., M. C. Steffens, P. Jelenec & N. K. Goergens. 2011. Interactive context integration in children? Evidence from an action memory study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 108, 747–761. Meteyard, L., S. R. Cuadrado, B. Bahrami & G. Vigliocco. 2012. Coming of age:
A review of embodiment and the neuroscience of semantics. Cortex 48, 788-804.
Moseley, R., F. Carota, O. Hauk, B. Mohr & F. Pulvermüller. 2012. A role for the motor system in binding abstract emotional meaning. Cerebral Cortex 22, 1634–1647.
Mukamel, Roy, Arne D. Ekstrom, Jonas Kaplan, Marco Iacoboni & Itzhak Fried. 2010. Single-neuron responses in humans during execution and
observation of actions. Current Biology 20, 750–756.
Nadar, M. S. & J. McDowd. 2008. 'Show me, don't tell me'; is this a good approach for rehabilitation? Clinical Rehabilitation 22, 847–855.
Nilsson, L. G. 2000. Remembering actions and words. In F. I. M. Craik & E. Tulving (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Memory, 137–148. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nilsson, L. G., L. Nyberg, T. Klingberg, C. Aberg, J. Persson & P. E. Roland. 2000. Activity in motor areas while remembering action events. Neuroreport 11, 2199–2201.
Nyberg, L., K. M. Petersson, L. G. Nilsson, J. Sandblom, C. Aberg & M. Ingvar. 2001. Reactivation of motor brain areas during explicit memory for actions. Neuroimage 14, 521–528.
Ozyurek, A., R. M. Willems, S. Kita, & P. Hagoort. 2007. On-line integration of semantic information from speech and gesture: Insights from event- related brain potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19, 605–616. Paivio, A. 1969. Mental imagery in associative learning and memory.
Psychological Review 76, 241–263.
Paivio, A. & K. Csapo. 1969. Concrete image and verbal memory codes. Journal of Experimental Psychology 80, 279-285.
Paivio, A. 2006. Dual coding theory and education. In S. Neuman (ed.), Pathways to Literacy Achievement for High Poverty Children. The University of Michigan School of Education.
Paivio, Allan. 1971. Imagery and Verbal Processes. New York: Holt.
Paivio, Allan. 1986. Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press & Clarendon Press.
Paivio, Allan. 1991. Images in Mind: The Evolution of a Theory. New York & London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Pulvermüller, F. 1996. Neurobiologie der Sprache. Gehirntheoretische Überlegungen und empirische Befunde zur Sprachverarbeitung, vol. 1 — Psychologia Universalis. Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers.
Pulvermüller, F. 1999. Words in the brain's language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 253–336.
Pulvermüller, F. 2001. Brain reflections of words and their meaning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, 517–524.
Pulvermüller, F. 2005. Brain mechanisms linking language and action. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6, 576–582.
Pulvermüller, F. 2002. The Neuroscience of Language: On Brain Circuits of Words and Serial Order. Cambridge, MA & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pulvermüller, F. & L. Fadiga. 2010. Active perception: Sensorimotor circuits as a cortical basis for language. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, 351–360.
Pylyshyn, Zenon W. 1984. Computation and Cognition: Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quinn-Allen, Linda 1995. The effects of emblematic gestures on the development and access of mental representations of French expressions. The Modern Language Journal 79, 521–529.
Neurosciences 21, 188–194.
Romani, C., S. McAlpine & R. C. Martin. 2008. Concreteness effects in different tasks: Implications for models of short-term memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61, 292–323.
Rugg, M. D. & M. E. Nagy. 1989. Event-related potentials and recognition memory for words. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 72, 395–406.
Rusted, J. M. 2003. Action based memory in Alzheimer's disease. Research and Practice in Alzheimer's Disease 7, 103–107.
Saltz, E. & S. Donnenwerthnolan. 1981. Does motoric imagery facilitate memory for sentences — a selective interference test. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 20, 322–332.
Schatz, T. R., T. Spranger, V. Kubik & M. Knopf, 2011. Exploring the enactment effect from an information processing view: What can we learn from serial position analyses? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 509-515.
Schewe, Manfred & Peter Shaw. 1993. Towards Drama as a Method in the Foreign Language Classroom. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Schwanenflugel, P. J., K. K. Harnishfeger & R. W. Stowe. 1988. Context availability and lexical decisions for abstract and concrete words. Journal of Memory and Language 27, 499–520.
Scott, S. K. 2004. The neural representation of concrete nouns: What's right and what's left?. Trends in Cognitive Science 8, 151–153.
Shams, Ladan & Aaron R. Seitz. 2008. Benefits of multisensory learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12, 411–417.
Shams, Ladan, David Wozny, R. Kim, S. Robyn & Aaron Seitz. 2011. Influences of multisensory experience on subsequent unisensory processing. Frontiers in Psychology 2, 264.
Shimojo, Shinsuke & Ladan Shams. 2001. Sensory modalities are not separate modalities: Plasticity and interactions. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 11, 505–509.
Simon, Herbert A. 1981. Information-Processing models of cognition. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 32, 364–377.
Spranger, Tina, Tanja R. Schatz & Monika Knopf. 2008. Does action make you faster? A retrieval-based approach to investigating the origins of the enactment effect. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 49, 487–495.
Straube, B., A. Green, S. Weis, A. Chatterjee & T. Kircher. 2009. Memory effects of speech and gesture binding: Cortical and hippocampal activation in relation to subsequent memory performance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21, 821–836.
Swain, M. & S. Lapkin. 1995. Problems in output and the cognitive processes they generate: A step towards second language learning. Applied Linguistics 16, 371–391.
Sydorenko, T. 2010. Modality of input and vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning and Technology 14, 50–73.
Taleghani-Nikazm, C. 2008. Gestures in foreign language classrooms: An empirical analysis of their organization and function. In Melissa Bowles et al. (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum,
229–238. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Tellier, M. 2008. The effect of gestures on second language memorisation by young children. Gesture 8, 219–235.
Tomasello, M., M. Carpenter, & U. Liszkowski, 2007. A new look at infant pointing. Child Development 78, 705–722.
Tomasello, Michael. 2005. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, Michael. 2008. Origins of Human Communication: The Jean Nicod Lectures. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press.
Tomasi, Dardo & Nora D. Volkow. 2011. Functional connectivity hubs in the human brain. NeuroImage 57, 908–917.
Tonzar, C., L. Lotto & R. Job. 2009. L2 vocabulary acquisition in children: Effects of learning method and cognate status. Language Learning 59, 623–646. Vigliocco, G., D. P. Vinson, W. Lewis & M. F. Garrett. 2004. Representing the
meanings of object and action words: The featural and unitary semantic space hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology 48, 422–488.
Vigliocco, G., L. Meteyard, M. Andrews & S. Kousta. 2009. Toward a theory of semantic representation. Language and Cognition 1–2, 219–247.
Vogt, Stefan, Giovanni Buccino, Afra M Wohlschläger, Nicola Canessa, N. Jon Shah, Karl Zilles, Simon B. Eickhoff, Hans-Joachim Freund, Giacomo